Kung Fu in Phoenix/Tempe, AZ?

[blindsage12]

So, I'm planning to move to Arizona next year for grad school, and I'm wondering if anybody has good CMA recommendations for the area. I'm an internal guy these days, and any Bagua, Xingyi, LHBF, or Yiquan schools would be greatly appreciated. I'm open to other CMA's as well. My wish list would be Bajiquan, Tongbei, or Southern Mantis, but I'm open. I know of a couple of good Wing Chun people down there and I know there's a good I Liq Chuan guy, anything else?

P.S. Not really a modern Wushu guy.

 

[Flying Crane]

I think I saw a listing for Fujian white crane, connected to someone who teaches here in San Francisco. I don't know their reputation, but might be worth checking out.

 

[blindsage12]

FC are you talking about these guys?

http://www.whitecrane.ws/

 

[Flying Crane]

I'm having a hard time getting the page to open properly, but I'm seeing enough that I don't think this is the one I was looking at. I was in Phoenix area back in about 2008 for business, and I was just paging thru the yellowpages, I think. I might be wrong, maybe I had looking online...anyway, I found a school there that was Fukien white crane. I don't really get what that Toisan white crane is all about. But the school I found stated that the teacher was a student of some guy in San Francisco. Sorry I can't remember the names.

 

[clfsean]

Peter Pena down on the south-ish side in Gilbert. Bak Mei / Lung Ying / White Crane etc...

http://www.freewebs.com/southernfistclub/

 

[Flying Crane]

I see he's making reference to Toisan too. Is that a region in china? Is this the same as fukien white crane?

 

[clfsean]

I see he's making reference to Toisan too. Is that a region in china? Is this the same as fukien white crane?

Nah... Toisan is south of Guangzhou. It's the region the Wong brothers (and lots of others) were from.

 

[Flying Crane]

Nah... Toisan is south of Guangzhou. It's the region the Wong brothers (and lots of others) were from.

so this Toisan White Crane is actually the Fukien white crane style?

 

[clfsean]

so this Toisan White Crane is actually the Fukien white crane style?

It could be & the guy is just from Toisan. I dunno. I've never seen his WC performed.

 

[Xue Sheng90]

I do not know this person but if he is what he claims to be he is well worth checking out

T'ai Chi Ch'uan Academy

If this guy is what he claims to be he is a student of Tung Kai Ying, the oldest son of Tung Hu Ling. Tung Kai Ying learned from his father and his Grandfather (Tung Ying Chieh) and is, IMO, the best of the current living Tung Family to learn from although I am told he tends toward the traditional

 

[Flying Crane]

FC are you talking about these guys?

http://www.whitecrane.ws/

I had a chance to take a better look at this. I don't know what to think of it. There is a short demo of "chuin, pow, khap", which are the three primary punches in Tibetan White Crane. I don't care much for how he does them, I think he's missing a lot, but that's what they are.

Then, there is a description of white crane "primary forms", including feeding, flying, calling, crane, etc. That sounds to me like Fukienese white crane. These are two very different systems, not connected or related, other than by coincidentally using the same name.

The history of Master Zu simply says that (among other things) he studied White Crane in 1963 under a "famous master", but it doesn't say who.

So I really don't know what he is doing, what this Toisan white crane is. Mebbe it's some personalized mix of elements of the Tibetan and Fukien methods? I don't think that's a good idea, they are just really different, different fundamentals and foundation work and I don't think it'll mix well. But that's my opinion.

 

[TaiChiTJ]

Yes, Xue Sheng, David Block has been teaching here in Phoenix since at least the early 80's when I became aware of him. He is a long time Tung Family practitioner.

 

[TaiChiTJ]

This gentleman teaches a variety of TCMA, particularly Chen TaiJi:

http://drxiaotcm.com/index.html

He also appears to be on the staff of this North Phoenix Kung Fu School:
http://www.9dragonskungfu.com/index.html

 

[TaiChiTJ]

While it is not in the syllabus of arts you mention, If we are talking Phoenix CMA, I will mention an important contributor to the Wing Chun section of MartialTalk:

http://www.vingtsunaz.com/bio/

 

[TaiChiTJ]

Now for something completely different. I came across this site a few months ago and never researched it. There is a teacher northeast of Scottsdale (Scottsdale is northeast of metropolitan phoenix) teaching something called Mu Dong Kung Fu. Maybe some folks on MartialTalk know about this style.

Here is the MuDong KungFu Main site:
http://mudongkungfu.tripod.com/id1.html

Here is our teacher in Rio Verde, Arizona:
http://www.masterwongaz.com/mudong_web_site_011.htm

Looks like a very forms heavy system. Also he seems to have a strong internal element.
Anyway, this thread got me learning about cma in my town.
BTW, it is a bit of a drive, I think, out to Rio Verde.

 

[blindsage12]

Peter Pena down on the south-ish side in Gilbert. Bak Mei / Lung Ying / White Crane etc...

http://www.freewebs.com/southernfistclub/

This is great, thanks. I am intrigued by Bak Mei and Lung Ying. Do you have experience with Peter Pena?

 

[blindsage12]

Now for something completely different. I came across this site a few months ago and never researched it. There is a teacher northeast of Scottsdale (Scottsdale is northeast of metropolitan phoenix) teaching something called Mu Dong Kung Fu. Maybe some folks on MartialTalk know about this style.

Here is the MuDong KungFu Main site:
http://mudongkungfu.tripod.com/id1.html

Here is our teacher in Rio Verde, Arizona:
http://www.masterwongaz.com/mudong_web_site_011.htm

Looks like a very forms heavy system. Also he seems to have a strong internal element.
Anyway, this thread got me learning about cma in my town.
BTW, it is a bit of a drive, I think, out to Rio Verde.

Interesting some form of combination of a snake system with LHBF. I'd be curious to check it out at least.

 

[clfsean]

This is great, thanks. I am intrigued by Bak Mei and Lung Ying. Do you have experience with Peter Pena?

Personally no, but my sigung knew him from NYC back in the day & say he's got the goods, at least as far as the Hung Ga & Bak Mei since that's what he knew him for. I'm certain given his background, if he's teaching Lung Ying openly (which he is), then I've got to feel he's got the goods there & ok to teach that. Lung Ying is relatively rare so it's a very small community. I couldn't see somebody teaching it without the ok to teach it for long.

 

[blindsage12]

Personally no, but my sigung knew him from NYC back in the day & say he's got the goods, at least as far as the Hung Ga & Bak Mei since that's what he knew him for. I'm certain given his background, if he's teaching Lung Ying openly (which he is), then I've got to feel he's got the goods there & ok to teach that. Lung Ying is relatively rare so it's a very small community. I couldn't see somebody teaching it without the ok to teach it for long.

I'll definitely have to check him out. Thanks.

 

[TaiChiTJ]

There are several Wing Chun schools in the Phoenix/Tempe area besides the one site I mentioned in a previous post. Part of the history I am aware of is that sometime in the late 60's / early 70's saw the arrival of Master Augustine Fong in Tucson.
Master Fong traces his lineage to Ho-Kam-Ming, an important figure in Yip Man's lineage. There are teachers in the Phoenix/Tempe area who trained under Master Fong.

And that is only one of the Wing Chun connections happening in the area. Another representative of the Wing Chun Pai include Hung Fa Yi.

I think Geezer said in one of his posts, "Phoenix is a Wing Chun mecca".

Here's a thread that discusses W/C schools in AZ:
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php/72143-Wing-Tsun-in-arizona?highlight=mecca